I will use this Blog and Web site to park and link to information related to my personal life. You will find information about my business ventures and interests. Articles, photos, videos, music and much more.. My Blog entries are more like questions than answers. Please feel free to participate - sdoliver

Magic Moment

Some times your there at the right moment!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Oh what fun it is! What a joy! You are starting a new business or creating a significant change in your life? Getting ready to get married or buying your first home? Just completed college or university and looking for your first job?

It is all just so easy, right? It is a “piece of cake”? Starting a new life project is just real easy. Everything goes just the way you want. No confusion and every decision you make is perfect.

OK, as they say in the computer business: “That’s the demo version!” What is reality?

In reality, you may get frustrated, make many errors and wonder why the heck you started this project. Sometimes people get the “Demo Version” and everything goes just perfect. However, for most of us, it is really hard to make major changes. People experience a lot of chaos when making a major change or starting a significant life project.

It seems like the larger the project or the more significant the life change the more chaos we experience. The chaos can be so intense that we may even stop the project or decide the price for making the life change is too expensive. We may “back off”, run like heck and try to avoid the project or change. The chaos may have just become way too intense! You may even feel physcally bad, not able to eat and feel sick.

Have you ever tried to stop smoking? Leave a long term dysfunctional relationship? Hey, these are all good things to do in your life. So, why do we experience all this chaos when we are trying to do “good” things in our lives?

Ok, let’s look at it a different way. What if the experience of chaos was an indicator that we are having some success? The act of experiencing all this confusion, doubt, anxiety and the eruption of chaos may be normal.

Consider these three levels of learning and personal growth:

First we are totally ignorant of what we need to know inorder to make the change,

Then we become knowledgeable about what we don’t know and we may panic,

Finally we gain some understanding and begin to master this new knowledge.

The chaos usually happens in the second level. If you are at the second level, keep going until you reach the third level. It has been proven that people on the second level may become totally messed up and confused. The brain just does not have the neural pathways to complete the tasks. The process of creating the needed neural pathways or learn the new skills, takes time, practice and patience. Do not quit! If this change is important to you than just keep going until to reach the third level. Just trust that you can do it!

Sunday, June 13, 2010

The art of meditation may seem like a mystery. If you have never tried to meditate or have not researched it, you may have some vague impressions about the art. There are many different descriptions about meditation and lots of mis-information about this age old art. Some people view meditation as a religion while others view it as a science. There are numerous schools, churches, healing centres and institutes dedicated to the art of meditation.

Hey, most if not all of the major world contributors practiced the art of meditation. Great people like Mahatma Gandhi, The Beatles, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King and the list could go on and on..

Perhaps one good question maybe “What did these great men and women of the world gain from meditation?”. So, what is the big deal? Perhaps these great people were born with special “gifts”. Maybe these great people of the world were lucky and were given special powers and wisdom. It could be argued that some people have great understanding and wisdom and others just do not. Some just have “it”.

Is it really true that some have “it” and others do not? And what heck is this “it”? And what does the art of meditation have to do with anything? Let us just call this “it” ones Personal Power. With that, let’s take a deeper look at meditation.

Well, I can see three major types of meditation; guided, focused and empty. The guided meditation cover styles like group prayer and meditation for a specific goal or outcome. Focused meditations styles include chanting, mantras or watching one’s breath. Finally, the empty meditation is when we detach and specifically avoid “thinking”.

OK, so what does all that mean? It means that we can train our mind. We can enhance the way we think. From the time we are conceived, we begin to develop our ability to think. At some point, we become an adult with some level of mental ability. We end up with our unique level of understanding and ability to comprehend the world.

Brain research has proven that our ability to learn is vast. We have the ability to grow new neural pathways all of our lives. So what is the connection between neural pathways, meditation and personal power?

The neural pathways in our brains is our programming. This programming determines everything in our lives. Perhaps our neural pathways might have something to do with one's level of personal power? Here is a basic definition of meditation: “An exercise to enhance on mind.”

And most important, with the practice of meditation, we can continue to change and grow more neural pathways for the rest of our lives, thus continuing to enhance our Personal Power.